Following Darjeeling

Bernardo and Linda made their way along the stepping stones following about ten stones or so behind the elderly Chinese caretaker. As they walked the path, they would notice certain things around them. Fireflies in daytime flickered around a bush with red flowers, honeybees drank from a scented birdbath and lit on the limbs and leaves of a cherry tree, humming in unison until the sound was near deafening. At another step the stone lit up and struck a C chord, sounding like a muffled piano. The next one played a D chord and the third a G. They were compelled to return and play the different stones until the old one came and hurried them along, lest they spend the rest of their time in one place. The path meandered through fields of flowers, poppies and daisies and black-eyed susans, Queen Ann’s lace, and Echinacea. Another twist in the road and they were in a rose garden where the path was like a maze that finally led them into an herb garden. In this garden was a park bench and the two of them decided to sit down and rest. As they did so, a melodious chant could be heard coming from all around them. It made them feel drowsy. The old caretaker came back up the path and admonished them to get up as soon as possible or they would spend eternity on that bench. It didn’t sound too bad to them and they sat there until the old man grabbed Bernardo by the elbow and helped him back onto the path and then did Linda the same way. They looked at each other sleepily and continued down the stone walkway. As they came to a heavy thicket of plum trees, they could hear chanting and smell beautiful incense. There was a hole cut in the thicket and the stone path went through it into a clearing. The clearing was bathed in golden sunlight and above was a beautiful blue sky. In the distance was a beautiful clear lake with a small island in the middle. Bernardo and Linda sat down on the grassy hillside overlooking the lake. It was so peaceful and calm. They noticed the old caretaker sitting on a stone nearby with legs crossed and eyes slightly closed. He raised his hand and pointed toward the island. Out of the middle of an island a single tree rose toward the sky. It was a beautiful tree with green, leafy branches and beautiful chestnut brown trunk and limbs. On the green boughs were brightly colored fruits that turned into multicolored, multifaceted jewels as Linda and Bernard looked at them. Their eyes and their minds were transfixed on the tree and its fruit. As they looked up further in the tree the tree continued to grow taller and taller with more and more jewels on the branches. The blue sky background took on a golden glow and thousands of small, abstract, puffy, pure white clouds formed on the golden surface. Now they could see the top of the tree and at the very top of the tree there appeared to be a person who was perched there. On looking closer they realized it was the old caretaker, but when they looked, he was still in his same place on the stone seat near them. A thin wisp of smoke or cloud emanated from the top of his head and wound down the verdant, grassy slope to the lake where it floated out to the island and spiraled around and around the tree, seemingly caressing all the jewels clear up to the top where the cloudy wisp spread out into a lotus flower cushion on which his other image sat. They were suddenly filled with compassion and lovingkindness for all beings on the earth. They looked at each other. They looked back at the tree and the old man told them, “This is the tree of wish-fulfilling jewels which brings compassion and lovingkindness to all sentient beings in the universe.” The wispy clouds in the background had now changed to thousands of Buddhas that surrounded the tree. Their chanting filled the air around them with the smell of beautiful incense. Linda and Bernardo looked on in amazement, having never experienced anything anywhere on this level. The old man approached and offering his two hands, one to each of them, directed them to let the image of the tree go and to concentrate on the compassion that they had experienced; to take with them and remember from this day on. They looked at him and smiled and he smiled back and they realized that their clothing had changed into white, gold-trimmed robes and leather flip-flop sandals.
The path now headed back toward the plum thicket in the same fashion as before. At the edge of the thicket another hole presented itself and they made their way through, this time into another clearing where an old two story farmhouse and barn stood. The point at which they came out of the thicket was at the backyard area of the farmhouse. Near them were several beehives and further away, grapevines in neatly trellised rows spilled off of the top of the hill and into the lower field below. A couple of old pickups and an old John Deere 420 with a brush mower were parked in the circle drive in front and a few dogs lay under the trucks in the coolness of the shade they offered. In back of the house was a concrete patio and a wooden deck. The patio and deck were connected by another patio of red bricks. The deck was octagonal in design about thirty feet across and about two feet off the ground. There was a group of people sitting around the perimeter of the deck in the old style metal lawn chairs, the kind with tubular rocking bases and fan back metal seats, all painted in different pastel colors. As the three of them approached the old one rang a small dingsha bell and the people turned to look. Upon seeing him they all got up and proceeded to stand behind the deck so they were in the background as the trio came toward them. All of them were dressed in white robes and leather flip-flop sandals just like Linda and Bernardo. As they got closer they could see three figures sitting on brightly colored lotus-shaped cushions near the middle of the deck. Two of the people on the deck were facing them and were offset to the left and right and behind the third one who was sitting inside a smaller octagonal area at the center of the deck. The old caretaker smiled at them. “This is as far as I can take you, the rest you will have to do for yourself,” he told them.
Linda was the first to speak. “You have shown us beautiful and unimaginable things, but where are we and what exactly are we doing here?” He looked at her and shrugged, holding his arms out with palms up.
Bernardo butted in. “What are we supposed to do now that you are leaving?”
“Accept what you see and reject what you don’t.” And with that statement the old man walked away from them around the corner of the house not to be seen by them again.